[Review] The Moogai (SXSW Online 2021): Child-Stealing Supernatural Entity Terrifies an Indigenous Couple in Eerie Australian Horror Short

Australian short film The Moogai won this year’s SXSW Jury Prize in the Midnight Short section, and for good reason. Writer/director Jon Bell’s harrowing short film is rich in spine-tingling atmosphere, with a gripping, meaningful story and solid performances.

Sarah (Shari Sebbens) and Fergus (Meyne Watt) have a newborn baby, and Sarah begins seeing haunting images of a young Aboriginal girl warning her of something that is watching her. The something turns out to be a child-stealing supernatural entity. 

Bell takes the fear-fare trope of a woman seeing terrifying otherworldly forces and her husband not believing her and puts a different spin on the situation. The director ratchets up the suspense marvelously, enveloping his short film in an aura of absolute dread and terror. 

Sebbens and Watt play off of each other wonderfully, both having the opportunity to show strength with varying emotions, and making their fear seem realistic. Sebbens superbly conveys the distress of a mother terrified about having her child taken away from her.

Bell has crafted an excellent short that works on a surface level as a frightening horror tale, but that also offers a great deal of depth. The possibilities of postpartum depression come into play, but the film is also commentary on the Stolen Generations, during which Australian government agencies forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families. 

The Moogai screened as part of SXSW Online 2021, which ran from March 16–20, 2021. 

Joseph Perry

Joseph Perry fell in love with horror films as a preschooler when he first saw the Gill-Man swim across the TV screen in "The Creature from The Black Lagoon" and Mothra battle Godzilla in "Godzilla Vs. The Thing.” His education in fright fare continued with TV series such as "The Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits," along with legendary northern California horror host Bob Wilkins’ "Creature Features." His love for silver age and golden age comic books, including horror titles from Gold Key, Dell, and Marvel started around age 5. He is a contributing writer for "Phantom of the Movies VideoScope" print magazine and the websites Gruesome Magazine, Diabolique Magazine, Ghastly Grinning, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, and When It Was Cool. He is a co-host of the "Decades of Horror: The Classic Era" and "Uphill Both Ways" podcasts. Joseph has also written for “Scream” magazine, "Filmfax" magazine, “SQ Horror” magazine, and the websites That's Not Current an HorrorNews.net. He occasionally proudly co-writes articles with his son Cohen Perry, who is a film critic in his own right. A former northern Californian and Oregonian, Joseph has been teaching, writing, and living in South Korea since 2008.